Load retaining door having center support



1952 LE ROY WEISS LOAD RETAINING DOOR HAVING CENTER SUPPORT Filed Aug. 16. 1950 Patented Jan. 8, 1952 RETAINING DOOR GENTER ISI IPPORT Le Roy 'We'iss, Chicago, Ill., assignor to Signode el S rapping oin I poration offBelaware De y, .Qhi aso, 11L, a 1

Aer ieetionfigsusilii, ,:Sex1ial No. Ira-84 T e. p es nt nvention relates t oad reta ning doors of a type used principally in railway box cars and similar vehicles. A doo .Q this en ra e is shown in Rat ot .No. 2,319,860 isd to hn Moon, ebru ry 9, 1 3 .3. .for Grain Door.

eta n doors f s nera cha acter a e secured in place usually with nails to the inside surfaces of the vertical door sills and to the floor ofa car so as to form a seal to prevent grain or small boxes or other material loaded into the car from coming in contact with the sliding outside doors of the railway car. Such load retaining doors thereby serve the dual-function ofpreventing leakage or shifting of the load and in addition keep the load away from the sliding doors so that the sliding doors may be opened easily without damage to the load.

'A- retaining door ofthe type described in the previously mentioned patent will, of course, sag outwardly at the center but ordinarily not on ordinary doorways to such an extent that it interferes with movement of the outside main doors of the car. With railway cars, however, which have particularly wide doors up to eight feet, for instance, the sagging at the center of the load retaining door may be sufificient to cause interference.

It is one of the objects of the present invention to provide a load retaining door at low cost which can be used successfully on doorways of large size without causing interference with the outside sliding doors.

Yet another object is to providea center support for load retaining doors particularly of the type which have their major strength 'in tension only.

Yet another object is to accomplish the above in a simple manner and in such fashion that the center support for the load retaining door can be placed in operation in a of time and with very little labor.

Other objects and advantages will appear from the following description of a preferred embodiment of my invention which is illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

In the drawings:

Fig. 1 illustrates diagrammatically the disposition of load retaining doors according to the present invention in a railway box car. The view may be considered as a fragmentary horizontal section through the car looking downwardly toward the floor; v

Fig 2 is a side view partly in vertical medial section illustrating the door support of Fig. 1;

3Glztims. (01.160-368) Fig. 3 is ,a transverse sectional -view which may be considered as taken in the direction of the arrows substantially along the line .3-3 of Fig.

Fig. 4 is a view of the apparatus of Fig. .2 at right angles to the view of Fig. 2 and may be considered as taken in the direction of the arrows along the line Lat of Fig. 2

Fig. .5 is a sectional view which may be considered as taken in the direction of the arrows alon the line 5-5 of Fig. 3;

Fig. 6 is an end view of an alternative form of one of the elements form ng a part of the apparatus. of Figs 1 to 5; and

Fig. 7 is a sectional view which may be considered as taken in the direction of the arrows substantially along the line 1-1 of Fig. 6.

By referring to Fig. 1, it will be seen that I have shown diagrammatically a portion of a railway freight car having a floor L0 and side walls [2. At each side there is also shown a doorway l4 having posts H5 at each vertical edge thereof. The outside sliding door provided as a part of the car to close the opening it is illustrated at l8.

In this structure a load retaining door 20 is secured in place in the conventional manner. This door may be considered as being of the type described in the previously mentioned patent, and in general consists of one or more heavy paper plies supported at spaced intervals by steel bands which are nailed to the inside surfaces of the posts l6. These doors. it will be appreciated, have their principal strength in tension and therefore sag outwardly under the infiuence of a load disposed within the car. Ordinarily, however, with railway cars having the standard door width of six feet, the amount of outward sag of the retaining doors .26 is not sufficient to bring the central portion of these panels in contact with the sliding doors l8. They therefore retain the load effectively and prevent. interference with the car main doors even though they bulge under the pressure of the load within the car.

Currently in, order to permit the handling of larger objects and to facilitate loading of the car, many railway freight cars are being constructed with doors up to eight feet in width. If a load retaining door of the type, mentioned is secured across an eight foot opening, the amountv of outward sag under the influence particularly of some loads which shift easily, may be enou h to cause interference with the slid-. ing main doors 18. In order to prevent this interference the present invention provides center support for the panels 20 so that as shown in Figure 1 the panels may sag between either of the edge posts and the central portion of the door, but the central portion is pulled inwardly toward the longitudinal center line of the car by placing vertically extending channel members against the outside surfaces of the panels 20 and then tying these channel members together across the center of the car so that the tendency of the load to urge one of the retaining doors outwardly at the center is counterbalanced by the substantially equal tendency at the opposite side of the car.

The vertically extending door center Supporting members are indicated generally by the numeral 22 and as shown in Figs. 2, 3 and 4 are made up of a steel channel member, the two ends of which are bent backwardly as at '24, at an angle of approximately 30 or so. As best shown in Fig. 3, the channels have a flat portion 26 which is brought in contact with the outside surface of the retaining door 26 and side flanges 28 which extend backwardly from the surface 25. Preferably the side flanges 28 are not quite at right angles to the surface 26, this angle being somewhat obtuse so that the flanges 28 flare somewhat away from each other. At their rearward edges the side flanges 28 are bent or rolled inwardly to form overhanging portions 30 with a longitudinally extending slot 32 between their adjacent edges. Such a channel section is rigid and strongly resists bending loads. In the example shown there are a pair of longitudinally spaced longitudinally extending slots 34 formed through the portion 26 of the channel which is brought against the door 25 The slots in the example shown are something over one and one-half inches long and about three-sixtenths of an inch wide. It will be appreciated that these dimensions are not critical, however.

'Two of these channel members, one at each side of the car, are vertically positioned and pulled together by one or more wire ties 36 which extend across the .car and are secured by wire locks 38 in the channels.

Each of the locks 38 is'comprised of 'a conical hardened steel sleeve 40 which has in general the conformation of the inside space within the channel member 22 excepting that it is somewhat smaller so as to have a loose fit therein. That is, the fit is suificiently loose so that the conical sleeve will slide from end to end within the channel and can be'rotated about its axis, but cannot otherwise be displaced within the channel to any substantial degree. 1

A locking member 42 is disposed within each of the tapered sleeves 46 and is formed in general as a plug having an external tapered form which fits the inside tapered surface of the sleeve 40. Its size is such that when it isdropped into the large open end of the tapered sleeve 44, it will slide downwardly therein an appreciable distance but not all the way to the small end.-

A cylindrical hole 44 formed through the center of the plug 42 and this hole is threaded so as to form teeth which face inwardly. The finished hole has a dimension slightly less than or about the same as the tie wire 36. The plug is milled, broached or sawed to form a slot 46 which extends across the diameter of the plug and through the hole' 44 almost to the opposite side of the plug. As shown, however, in Figure thereis a small section 48 connecting the two halves of the plug which are otherwise separated by the slot 46. Preferably the slot is so formed that as is best seen in Fig. 3 the remaining portion 48 is of approximately equal thickness from top to bottom. Also to facilitate entry of the wire into the opening 44 the end of the opening 44 at the smaller end of theplug is tapered rather sharply outwardly to produce a flared opening, indicated at 50.

The plug 42, after machining in the above described manner, and the sleeve 48 are then heat treated to produce a hard surface. In the example shown, two of these plugs are inserted into the ends of each of the channel members 22 and are slid along its length until they are opposite the slots 34. They are retained in this general location by forming depressions or inwardly extending dimples in the channel, as indicated at 52, so that although they are free to slide between the dimples, they cannot move beyond this range. The range is such that the center opening 44 through the plug 42 is always in alignmentiwith some portion of the slot 34. Afterthe locks .are place the two end portions 24 of the channel are bent backwardly as previously mentioned so that as the paper panel sags around the channel members 22 when they are in place, it will not be cut at the top or bottom of the channel members.

The alternative locking plug shown in Figures 6 and 7 differs over th'e plug described mainly in that the plug is formed in two halves separated along the line 54, each of these halves having much the same conformation as the two halves of the plug 42 would have if the slot 46 passed all the way through from edge toedge. These two pieces are formed on their external tapered sur face to provide .a circumferential groove 56; and are held together by a. small diameter snap ring 58 which lies within the groove 56, the depth of the groove being greater than the diameter of the wire of which the snap ring 58 is formed so that no portion of the snap ring extends outwardly beyond the tapered external surface of the plug. This snap ring serves to hold the two locking plug elements together within the tapered sleeve 40 until the device is put in use. Normally the channel member 22 will be furnished to the user with the locking plugs 38 in place and with the ends 24 bent as described. When it is desired to install a retaining door across a wide doorway, the steel bands of the paper panel are nailed in place in the usual manner and then oneof the channel members 22 is located at each side of the car and vertically positioned with its inner face 26 against approximately the horizontal center oithe panel 20. A pair of wires 36 are then passed across the carhorizontally and pushed through the paper material of the panels 2!) and through oneof the series of spacedholes normally p1 0- videdin the bands of the panelin general align: ment with the vertical slots 24. The ends. o f the wires are passed through the slots 34 and through the central openings 44 of the locking plugs sothat they project outwardly beyond the back surfaces of the channel membersZ ZV 'Ihe channel members '22 are then pushed inwardly toward the center of the car as far ass desirable and the ends of the wires 36 simply bent over. vAs soon as the channels 22 are released they, of course, tend to spring outwardly but since the bends in the wires 36 ofier considerable resistance to being drawnbackwardly through the holes 44, the plugs 42 are pulled into the tapered sleeves 40. Thiscauses the'two halves of the plugs to be wedged tightly against the wires 36 thereby causing the teeth formed along the surface of the holes 44 to bite into the wires 36, thus preventing further slipping. Thereafter the greater the outward pressure brought to bear against the channels 22, the more tightly the plugs 42 bite into the wires 36. It will be appreciated that the plug shown in Figs. 6 and 7 will offer no resistance whatever to being wedged tightly about the wire 36 as it is drawn into the sleeve 80 and that collapsing of the two halves of the plug illustrated in Figures 3 and 5 is resisted only by the thin section 48 which is not enough to prevent efiective action in the manner described.

It will be seen that a retaining door of the type described may be installed across wide doorways about as easily as the standard type door is installed across narrow doorways excepting that there is the additional operation of placing the two vertically extending channel members 22, and fastening these channel members together with a pair of wire ties extending across the car. It will be apparent also that since the channel members and the wire locks are prefabricated and supplied as a unit, there is no problem of finding and inserting the small looking plugs into the channels at the time of use. The operation of installing the center support for the door may be performed quickly since it is necessary only to pass the wires through the plugs, push the channels inwardly as far as desired, and then bend the wires over. It has been found that even a slight bending of the wires is sufiicient to produce good looking action but normally, of course, these wires will be bent inwardly enough so that they are out of the way of the outer sliding doors l8.

The channels may be rolled in long sections and then cut to length or if desired they may be formed of shorter pieces of lightweight plate stock which is shaped on a press brake to the,

desired configuration.

Although I have illustrated my invention in connection with one embodiment thereof, it will be appreciated that variations may be made therein without departing from the scope of the invention which should be measured by the scope of the accompanying claims.

I claim:

1. A retaining door comprising a flexible panel having its strength principally in tension adapted to be secured across a doorway to be closed and means for supporting the center of said panel along a vertical center line including a channel member, wire grippin tapered plugs disposed within said channel, said channel having means to limit movement of said plugs Within a desired longitudinal range, said channel having openings therethrough to give access to the centers of said plugs within said range, two of said channel members being adapted to be disposed at opposite sides of a railway car or the like tied together across the car by wires passing through the car and through said plugs.

2. A railway box car retaining door comprising a flexible panel having its strength principally in tension adapted to be secured across a doorway to be closed, two of said panels normally being used to close the two opposite car doorways, a channel member, wire gripping elements disposed within said channel member, said channel member having means to limit movement of-said gripping elements Within a desired longitudinal range therein, said channel member having openings therethrough to give access to said gripping elements within said range, two of said channel members bein adapted to be disposed at opposite sides of a railway car -or the like and tied together by wires adapted to pass across the car and through said panels and through said gripping elements.

3. A center support for a railway box car retaining door of the type comprising a flexible panel having its strength principally in tension and adapted to be secured across a doorway to be closed, two of said panels normally being used to close the two opposite car doorways, said center support comprising a channel member, wire gripping elements disposed within said channel member, said channel member having means to limit movement of said gripping elements within a desired longitudinal range therein, said channel member havin openings therethrough to give access to said gripping elements within said range, two of said channel members being adapted to be disposed at opposite 5 sides of a railway car or the like and tied together by wires adapted to pass across the car and through said panels and through said gripping elements.

LE ROY WEISS.

N 0 references cited. 

